While the overall global temperature rises, each area is diferent, and weather patterns change for each area. so while the average temperature over the year can be warmer, the pattern of cold and warm temperatures is changed, so cold spots can occur in summer and spots of warm in winter , plus there is more storms and erratic weather patterns, such as freakish snow fall in eastern seaboard.

Thus warmer here and less snow this winter, and more snow in Eastern seaboard, and colder temperatures, yet with more snow and colder winters, spring is arriving in Easttern seabord, while not here. There spring will be delayed, while ours will proably will be early. Yet if you take average winter temperature for Eastern Seaboad, add it to the average winter temperature here, and compare it to historical average , it will likely be higher. Thus global tempearature can be warmer, on average, while some areas are colder and some warmer. It has a lot to do with disturbance of upper atmosphere seasonal wind currents. Thus each area is affected, but each in its own way.

Here in Southern
Ontario we have had a mild dry winter. Only had to shovel twice (tractor needs
a doctor) and not too much even then,

So warmer then usual and very
little snow cover. Ground temperatures (5-6" below ground) has been much
colder then usual because of no snow cover. Even so, we still have snow
cover even after several days of temp in 1-14C (48-60F).

Will not know
how plants haave surrived winter for some time yet.

Global warming
results in strange weather patterns, not universal warming in all
climate areas. So we can all more strange wether patterns.

Can not even imagine (being a Californian) 2 feet for days.
Great thing about Irises, they don't care.

Years ago an old house near us was used for the fire department
training. Irises were never removed and they practice burned the house
down. Days later I rescued the irises and they boomed that
spring.

One of our group, in a separate
correspondence, asked how things are going in my iris world. The
answer is that we have had a record cold winter here, with two 2-foot snow
falls. The first brought two of my neighbor's 45-50-ft tall Leland
cypresses down on my house and iris beds. The second brought down
five more. (You can see some of the remaining trees standing behind
my house in the second photo.) While the worst damage to the house
appears to be a broken window and some eaves knocked loose, a tool shed
also collapsed, along with a broken fence, a semi-destroyed pretty
dogwood, and the extent of damage to individual plants as
yet unknown. Oil lamps, candelabras and the fireplace saved the day
when power went out. (Remember that when you hear the greenies
inveigh against fireplaces.) A young neighbor went up on the roof
and removed the heavy snow from my chimney cap, so the flu would
operate. My son and a daughter each live about an hour's drive away
(when the roads are clear). It took Nate 3 days, working with a snow
blower, to clear his long driveway. Laura and her husband, at
the end of a tiny side street, were marooned in their home for 8
days. On the morning of the eighth, her drive finally having been
cleared the evening before, Laura headed for work, only to find that a
snow plow had buried the entrance to their
street.

As for the irises as a whole, the long
deprivation of sunlight and prolonged freezing temperatures has had a
significant retarding effect. In an ordinary year, I would by now
have the plants groomed, fed and sprayed, and be looking forward to the
MDBs popping out in a couple of weeks. This year, the plants as yet
show no sign of new growth, hence are not yet able to be
groomed.

To give you an idea of
how abnormal things are, I've attached, besides a couple of
snow-buried beds and downed-trees shots, a photo of markers sunk into
the soil to their labels by the weight of the (finally melted) snow.
These are 15" rose markers, which usually stand 9 or 10 inches tall.
In an ordinary freeze-thaw- freeze-thaw winter here, the problem would be
markers out of the ground and toppled over, but this time, it's the
reverse. So, it's going to be an interesting spring. --
Griff